I reconnected with an online friend whom I had not met in person

• After losing my job, I wanted to use my free time to make up for people.
• I was nervous on my way to meet a stranger who had been my friend on Livejournal.
• The reconnection made me feel 19.

A Wednesday afternoon in August, I sat down at my kitchen table and tried not to look frightening. I was about to Slip into the DMS of a foreigner Who may have been a girl I knew on the internet.

Reaching in the past is like using one of these arcade scratch machines in a dark room: you will emerge either with a precious artifact or empty -handed hands. Even if the Instagram account I found was the same Sarah I had known on Livejournal As “Lonelypainter”, a reference to “A case of you” by Joni Mitchell, I did not know if she wanted to reconnect. Not everyone is as nostalgic as I am.

I had to wait until 10 minutes for my answer. “Hi! You have guessed correctly! It breathed me a little to see the username” Heyromeo “appear in my notifications! WOW. It’s great to hear you! How are you?

We fell into speech again of art, we encourage each other as we did all these years ago when I knew it as a writer, and she supported my budding literary identity.

I decided it was It’s time for us to meet in person.

We lived at around 2 hours

Now Sarah was also a musician, and I loved her clear and delicate voice when I listened to her song clips on Instagram.

After losing my job At the end of September, I decided to take risks and make up for people while I had time. Sarah and I had only lived about two hours apart for most of the last 20 years; Why not finally meet “IRL”? She loved the idea,, And we chose a Sunday in November.

I felt nervous when the day came as if he was preparing for a first appointment. What if the virtual friendship Do we remember with emotion not to have passed through the real world?

Jason Isbell, one of Sarah’s current favorite musicians, played slowly on television while we drank tea in her comfortable living room. It was like spending time, especially at university, when it is less than 21 years old or too broken to go out, leads to speaking, watching movies or listening to music in dormitories and salons first.

I felt like I was still 19 years old

During the 15 years that followed our distance from Livejournal, I was still married, now with two children. Sarah said she had the impression that she “lived many lives”. I told her about my current novel and we discussed the tests she had recently published On its substitution on recovery and sobriety.

Related stories

Before leaving, Sarah played a few songs for me on the piano and the guitar, a John Prine blanket and some original. I felt goosebumps when I heard “Room to Move”, a song on the release of an abusive relationship with a provocative refrain of “and I never miss you”.

Time has collapsed; I felt 19, 41 years old and every year. The project to read my Livejournal and see Sarah’s comments on almost all the entries inspired me to look for her. It also showed me how many people come and leave our lives over the years. Staying near everyone would not be possible, and this is not always desirable. But I feel deeply grateful for each connection that I have ever established, as ephemeral or painful.

“From the heart of my writer to yours,” said Sarah for me. I returned home while listening to the songs that I had just heard live, my friend’s voice filling the heat car and a plan to come back in March to see her play.